Patricia Q. Bidar: Pardon Me For Moonwalking

Welcome again to the new interview series at 100 Word Story to promote forthcoming and recently published books by our contributors. Authors answer five questions, each in 100 words or fewer. If you’re a contributor with a new book and you’d like to be included in this series, please reach out to us at hundredwordstory [at] gmail.com.

This week, we’re delighted to feature an interview with Patricia Q. Bidar. Her story collection Pardon Me for Moonwalking was recently published by Unsolicited Press. She is also the author of Wild Plums, a novelette. You can read her story “Closing Time” in 100 Word Story.

What did you learn while writing this book?

I had everything to learn about flash! Its unique economy, propulsion, scope. The energy exchange between writer and reader. I wasn’t new to writing—years ago, I studied fiction writing at UC Davis and taught creative writing to undergrads. But the works in this book represent my first four-ish years learning about flash fiction. I took classes, attended readings. Read a ton, and plunged into our online community.

In a way, it’s a pandemic book. Not COVID stories, but COVID sensibilities. Impulses.

I learned I see/say things uniquely. That what I create can touch another’s consciousness and perspective. It’s stunning.

What was particularly fun about writing this book?

Man, is anything more fun than writing flash fiction? Having glimpsed and grasped a deep, rough jewel from consciousness and shaping, carving so that another person can feel something of what we feel? Also fun: grappling with compression in revision. The work of maintaining and even amplifying meaning, while making the piece SHORTER. Honestly, I think compression was easier in my first few years of writing flash fiction (the years I wrote the stories in this book) than it is now! I’ve enrolled in SmokeLong Quarterly’s March Micro Marathon in hopes of goosing my ability to write very, very short.

What is one of your favorite sentences in this book?

“[The Ghost of Charles Bukowski] yearns for the bourgeois pleasure of watching a kid from the block heaving a mower east to west. He scratches his ghostly balls and relaxes into the salaryman’s fantasia: a sweating pitcher of lemonade he and the boy could share. A neighboring family to hate. A steak defrosting on the counter.”

Okay, it’s more than a sentence. I really do think Charles Bukowski is great. He retired in my home town and is buried there. To me, “The Ghost of Charles Bukowski Pines for His Job at the Mails” is an affectionate and funny tribute.

Give us a sense of your book in the form of a list of words or phrases.

thick air and tawdry dramas

spiral hairdo

bra and panty set

watermelon and mint

horsey-smelling henna

white halter dress

pulse-shimmering

synthetic red roses

slit eyed and moue-ing

ammoniac tang

Vertigo Effect

Russian roommates

strappy orange sundress

fusilli curls

cottonwoods droop

San Juan Bautista

hip-sheathed knife

lively skeleton

velvet sanctuary

Spanish saints

Mulholland

clattering metal restroom

community theater scene

motor oil

mediocre carnivore

sinister Puritan hearts and wings

The Stranger’s Tomb

Skylab

Captain EO sunglasses

Cape Canaveral

birdcage in her chest

tiny wet teeth

Quaking Aspen

wildcatters

petroleum perfume

Terminal Island

Burlap Slackers

rockabilly heartthrob

tankini of boyfriends

surrounded by octopi

What are you working on these days?

I’m writing some, although I’m more in reading and “admin” mode these days. I’m seeking a publisher for my second collection, which I am so proud of. It’s called, “Are You Experienced?” (Or, depending on where I am sending it, “Port Town.”) Most of the works are set in the Port of Los Angeles area where I’m from. I’m reading for both SmokeLong Quarterly and STORY Magazine, as well as for the Wigleaf 50. There’s so much exciting work out there. Lately, I’m inspired by the collections How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma.